


Rocket Man

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Gore, Implied/Referenced Torture, Tony Stark Has Issues, more may come but this is gonna be flagged as complete until then, the tags that come up with this mans name are alarming, u fuckers are never gonna see the end of weird crossovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12148320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: Tony Stark is a hot mess. It's obvious in the wrong ways.





	Rocket Man

The fact that Tony looked exactly like Howard and Maria had been what put the man off, he knew. Here comes a child, barely three, with no memories, looking exactly like the man and his  _ infertile  _ wife- plenty suspicious, especially since he’s faithful. He can understand completely! Although, by the fifteenth year of living with them, he’d have thought the engineer would have finally cooled his jets and realised it was coincidence. A really, really big coincidence, wrapped up in a few others and ending with a kid who may as well been his blood. Ha.

Howard was a paranoid bastard and Tony still hasn’t figured out how the man kept from experimenting on him before he was five.

But, y’know. Almost two decades of unease and a weird not-parent relationship, followed by a scarring accident that left Tony in a downward spiral. Years of private doctors and unexplained procedures, instilling a revulsion for hospitals and actual medical offices. Actual  _ lessons  _ on what was and wasn’t socially acceptable and how to blend into the background, because that wasn’t fucking weird at all. Granted, he was thankful for them, because he still hadn’t quite figured out what was okay to say to someone’s face, leading to a lot of scandals and more than a few slapped faces. Namely his. It was just so  _ hard  _ to filter what was alright to say and what wasn’t, even if it was fact, because apparently pointing out Jane was cheating on Bobby with Phil was  _ wrong _ , even if it was obvious. Bless Pepper, Happy and Rhodey for realising he didn’t have a filter early on.

Now,  _ Tony  _ probably should have clued into how Howard was just a little justified in it all before he was waking up on a table in Afghanistan and screaming because of his DNA rewriting itself.

* * *

 

Yinsen was, understandably baffled. Tony was baffled, the fucking terrorists were pissed and just a touch scared because their hostage just burst into fucking light. 

On the bright side, they waited until it was  _ done  _ to dunk him back underwater. And later, when Yinsen was inspecting the battery ( _ fucking car battery god fuck _ ) still hanging out in his chest, he dazedly reported to Tony that most of the damage was gone. Shrapnel was still there, which, fuck, but the residual stuff- tearing, contusions, bruises, and a shitton more- they were all gone. The only damage left was that surrounding his heart.

He also mentioned that Tony looked at least a decade younger and his eyes were a bright gold now, too, but. Priorities.

“I did not mention this in front of the Rings, Mister Stark, but there is also... something, in your chest cavity. Near your heart. It... seems to be another.”

“Another?”

“Another heart.” He clarified. His eyes were calm and dark as he surveyed the American. Tony turned back to the reactor and purged that revelation from his mind. There were more important issues than his suddenly-fucked biology.

Like watching Yinsen die and walking through the desert for hours! Fun times, fun times. He was never fucking doing this again.

When he was finally sat next to Rhodey, engulfed in his arms, he relaxed and let the tension of the desert leave him as best it could.

* * *

 

The first time Obie touched him, After, Tony got a shock, an impression of  _ disappointment-anger-impatience _ , and images of tan men trading missiles and talking in broken English. He recognised all their faces, and Obie’s hands as he reached out and shook theirs.

He distanced himself from Obadiah at that point, holing up in his workshop and working on the idea he’d had in that hellhole, building it up to an armor that stood still in front of him. He also had JARVIS scanning every record of transactions and deals done by Stark Industries and its workers. He’s not about to let this go.

“Sir,” JARVIS started hesitantly, a few nights after his first joyride and a few before Gulmira, his voice hesitant for an artificial intelligence, “Since your return, there appears to be anomalies within your anatomy. I have been running scans since, and there have been multiple alterations to multiple organ systems, as well as your DNA structure.”

Tony smiled humorlessly from where he was tinkering with one of the boots, adjusting the repulsors. “Yeah, picked up on that some back in Afghanistan. Why don’t you list out the changes for me, J?”

Lowered body temperature, more developed muscles, two extra ribs, blood of an unknown composition, and two hearts. His lungs were missing too, replaced with multiple small sacs connected by large tubes. That wasn’t even addressing the extra liver or the absolutely-fucking- _ weird _ triple helix he picked up when he tested his blood. And he did, because you don’t bleed orange-red glitter shit and  _ not  _ test yourself.

He had to put scrap in his hands and blare music for a good long while before he was calm enough to process that.

“Okay, so, so- I’m not human? Or what, I mutated? Can something like that happen because of enough trauma? I’m pretty sure something like that can’t happen.”

“There have been no reported cases of such a thing, no sir, discounting actual mutants. However, most present by puberty, and do not experience such widespread modifications, with the vast majority experiencing mutations restricted to one given area..” JARVIS replied. Tony tapped his fingers against a glove.

“Do we still have Howard and Maria’s DNA on record?”

* * *

 

Pepper walked in on him replacing the magnet in his chest. She behaved admirably and he regrets putting her through it but also loves her for her tiny, tiny hands. He makes sure to have a few more pairs of shoes and dresses from her wishlist delivered, because it’s the easiest way he knows how to both apologise and give thanks.

Rhodey still isn’t speaking to him. Tony wishes he was here so he could talk to someone other than the bots. Stane, the next time Tony sees him, give him flashes of a meeting with the Ten Rings, and the first suit he built in pieces, being handed over right before a bloodbath begins.

He has JARVIS compile all the evidence he’s dug up and put it into a neat little file, for when he... does something. He doesn’t know what yet. How do you deal with murderous, betraying family friends?

The reporter he let in his bed brings up Gulmira. Tony makes a series of mistakes in Gulmira. Such is life.

* * *

 

He reveals he’s Iron Man on national television, and the title settles in him like good food. There’s a deep-seated feeling of contentment, using it, that he can’t explain. He doesn’t care enough to poke at it.

* * *

The palladium should be poisoning him. It does not poison him. As far as he can tell, it’s just sitting nice and pretty in his chest and mostly just being a pain in the ass for his lungs and ribs. JARVIS and him still haven’t found any answers. There’s no mutants like him, not with this much, and professor Xavier, the one time Tony dared see him, was apologetic yet clueless.

He rebuilds the arc reactor anyways, fuelling it on old designs from Howard and late night innovations. It takes very little time to figure, and he can’t tell if it’s because of how he is or the new changes.

“You’re looking younger now, man; must have been all the alcohol and women, huh? Did you dye your hair or something, too? It looks like it's a bit darker.” Rhodey says one day over a video call. Tony makes some shitty retort and spends minutes afterwards looking at his face, studying it. Creases are gone, and although no one's noticed, his nose is striaghter, and his jaw less round. It's subtle, but obvious when you've stared at it for decades.   He hasn’t told anyone about the new changes, hasn’t even  _ looked at  _ a hospital or a doctor since, even though Pepper and Rhodey were pissed when he didn’t see one after Stane. Bastard had put up a fight when the SWAT team showed up, and it had taken the Mark II to down him.

Vanko is a shitstorm, but for some reason, Tony can’t get angry at it all. He’s angry at the government for trying to barge in on his shit, and for SHIELD- shady assholes they were-  _ already  _ barging in on his shit with “Natalie”, that he just doesn’t care. He’s working on two hours a fucking night and trying to keep people away from his babies, he doesn’t have time for Hammer and his petty shit, supporting a goddamn  _ terrorist _ .

_ Fucking humans _ .

And that thought right there is what’s got him worried.

* * *

 

He’s floating down to a wormhole, watching a nuke detonate and feeling the hole in his side like a brand. He’d been clipped hard, left torso tearing away and leaving him bleeding and without part of his intestine and a few other things, probably, and he’s pretty sure no one saw.

He doesn’t know if they would care or not anyways. He wishes he called Pepper. 

The image of hundreds of ships getting caught in the blast disappears as the wormhole closes above him as he falls through the air. The wind is screaming against his side. Something catches the armor, and it grips into the wound, making him scream because oh  _ g od- _

The concrete barely registers. There’s faces above him, Rogers looking devastated while Romanoff is quietly grim and debating mercy slitting his throat, he thinks? The horrified noise Capsicle makes in response would be hilarious if he wasn’t bleeding out. Thor’s watching too, silent and with this weird expression on his face, but Tony can’t place it because  _ priorities _ . There’s a tight feeling in his chest, and his head feels light, like he’s just been dosed up in painkillers, and he can hardly feel anything now.

He should expect the light. He does not expect the light. He remembers what happened last time and wishes and screams that he stays the same, that he doesn’t  _ change _ any more than he did already. When it’s over, he’s gasping and curling on his side, hale and hearty again. The arc reactor is still  _ fucking  _ there.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” He hears Steve whisper. Everything’s completely silent in their tiny circle, and his breathing’s practically thunder.

“A Gallifreyan.” Tony struggles to sit upright. Someone helps him, and he resolutely doesn’t figure out who, although the flashes of  _ anger-regret-self-loathing-bloodallloverhisfingersohgod _ make it pretty clear. Thor’s staring at him like he’s made out of spun gold and shitting universal cures.

“What?” He rasps. Thor shakes his head slowly, looking the engineer up and down.

“It was believed by Asgard that your kind were wiped out in the war between Skaro and Gallifrey. I am elated to see it is not so, although I am confused on to how you survived.” Tony stares at him, thinking about the heart and the blood and all the little things that added up to Not Right, and, of course. Of fucking course it’s aliens.

“What the hell is Gallifrey?”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me on tumblr!  
> thenightisdarkandfullofbooty.tumblr.com


End file.
